About a week ago or so, I ran across an interesting blog challenge. Officially, it’s called the October Memoir and Backstory Blog Challenge. That’s a bit of a mouthful, so I shortened it up a bit for my post title. Anyway, you can find out more about it here on Jane Ann McLachlan’s blog and sign up for it, should you so desire, here. I thought it sounded like fun, so I signed right up.
On the off chance that you haven’t clicked through to find out what it’s all about, here’s the gist of it: Write 25 posts in 31 days. Sounds easy enough, right? Ah, but there’s a theme: Each post should be a memory or reflection for each of the first 25 years of life. From the original post:
It can be a personal memoir from your life, a reflection on turning a certain age, a recollection of someone else at that age, a poem or a photo, on the ages 1 to 25.
For example, on October 1, you could write about something that happened the year you were born or about the birth of your child. You could do a photo collage of your first year of life or of babies. On October 2, write about something that happened at age two to you or someone else. If you write a poetry blog, compose a poem for each year of life up to 25. If you write a cooking blog, you could include recipes for healthy baby food, snacks for toddlers, etc. A gardener could reminisce about learning to love gardens at each age, or introducing the hobby to her children as they grow, or suggest gardening ideas for the various ages. Photographers can capture each year in photos. This will work with any type of blog, and you can experiment with different media or genres in your own posts. Be inventive – surprise us, delight us, inspire us, make us laugh, make us cry. Try something different every day or stick to one format and focus on content – anything goes as long as you blog about ages 1-25.
It’s touted as a great tool for NaNoWriMo, but I think it sounds like fun even if you’re not gearing up for NaNo, which I’m not. I’ve got enough other things going on without thinking about that and frankly, I’ll just be happy to finish my current WIP, never mind finish it in an already-crazy month. Whoever picked November for NaNoWriMo should have undergone a drug test because seriously? What were they thinking?
But I digress. Anyway. So today is the first day of October, the first day of the challenge, the post about age one. Obviously I don’t remember anything about myself at age one, although I do remember being told that the morning of my baptism, my parents were silly enough to feed me right before church. My dad was burping me and, as babies do, I burped…all the way down the back of his dark brown suit. In church. Ten miles from home.
I still think it’s a funny story, even after Cricket was kind enough to put me through four shirt changes on his very first Fourth of July. I maintain he was ill from being overheated. He was, after all, only a week old and it was, after all, blazing hot. Tomcat never did anything like that to me, at least. He only snapped my glasses in two, necessitating the purchase of another pair, which I’m happy to say I still have, despite Thumper’s recent attempt to put me in new ones.
Thumper, covered in breakfast
Photo courtesy of Greg Kauffman
But how can you stay mad at that face? I couldn’t stay made at Tomcat for long, either, but I do occasionally wish my boys weren’t quite so rough and tumble. Perhaps they’ll outgrow it?
Not bloody likely.
(c) 2012. All rights reserved.
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Suddenly they all died. The end. 
I enjoyed reading this. It was great the way you moved seamlessly from yourself as a baby to yourself as the parent of babies, with similar anecdotes.A great start – I look forward to reading your future posts in this challenge.
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Thanks! I’m glad you enjoyed it. I’ve got four kids and lots of stories, so I hope you’ll find others to enjoy as well! 🙂
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Don’t hold your breath. boys never grow out of it. Just last week I found myself climbing into and falling out of a tree in search of a football. I don’t bounce as well as I used to.
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Oh, no! I didn’t figure boys ever outgrew it. My husband will still take on a good friend of ours who is eight years his junior, just to prove he can do it. Not that said friend ever goads him into it… 🙂
There’s a country song I quite like called “As Good As I Once Was.” Part of the chorus says, “I ain’t as good as I once was, but I’m as good once as I ever was.” The line I like the best, though, and the one I think is probably the truest, goes, “Now my body says, ‘You can’t do this, boy,’ but my pride says, ‘Oh, yes, you can!'”
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I never listen to my body, or my wife, and that’s why I’m always sore.
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Yeah, that’ll do it… 🙂
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I can still do the sideways splits, yet not once in teaching and fighting martial arts for twenty seven years, have I ever been required to do it. I think I’m going to give it up. It stretches the jeans something terrible.
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I’ve never been able to do the splits, not even under duress. Consider me duly impressed that you could do them at any age and doubly so that you can still do them!
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Having made the decision, I’m so glad, because it’s beginning to hurt.
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What a fun challenge! If it wasn’t proving difficult for me to get even one post per week out, I’d totally be game. Cute backstory and photo–can’t wait to read more.
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Thanks, I’m glad you enjoyed it! And I’ve missed your posts lately – I was wondering what happened. It’s good to see you around! 🙂
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Life has been a little hectic, but I’m still here. 🙂
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I can sympathize with hectic! I hope it’s a good hectic, though, and that you can get back to posting soon!
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Fun piece. Those are great stories — both from your own infancy and your children’s. Cute picture!
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Thank you! My dad told me the story about my baptism a lot. There were some other stories, too, that always made me laugh. Maybe they’ll make an appearance later in the challenge. I hope you’ll stick around to find out!
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Hehe, girls never grow out of it either, I had two of ’em! 😀 What fun!
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So did my parents – I’ve got a younger sister and we progressed from being rough and tumble little girls to girls who fought like cats and dogs. Thank God my kids get along! 😀
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